Hours earlier, when Ratcliff and the 38th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops first learned they were to attack the Confederate fortifications at New Market Heights and Chaffin's Farm, they were ordered not to fire their weapons.

"Bayonets only," Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler had told them, fearing that in the fog they would accidentally shoot each other.

The Confederates, realizing they weren't firing back, were picking them off one by one.

They'd already killed Ratcliff's commanding officer, a white man.

That left Ratcliff in charge.

And he hadn't survived a life of slavery to bleed to death in battle. He and every black man around him had come too far for this to be their end.

Ratcliff had left his family - his wife, Grace, and daughter, Hannah - to fight for freedom. He meant to return to them, to live free for a good long time.

And the only way he saw that happening was to rise up and, in this battle at least, defeat the rebels.

When Edward Ratcliff donned his military uniform for the first time in January 1864, the 38th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops was a new unit. Ratcliff had just left the farm in James City where he was born a slave. He enlisted in Yorktown, signing on for three years.

Most of the freed men and former slaves in his unit hailed from Virginia or North Carolina. They were sent to Norfolk for training.

Officers had just more than a month to turn these lifelong farmers into soldiers. They had to learn basic drills. Left face. Right face. They learned how to march, how to fight in formation, and most of all, how to fire a rifle.

Once they were trained and ready, they became part of the 3rd Division, 18th Corps, Army of the James. The 3rd Division was made up entirely of colored troops - and their white officers.

At first, they were used mostly in support roles, like digging trenches.

Their first major battle didn't come until June, with the assault on Petersburg.

The city was a major supply hub for the Confederate Army and the Union believed that, through Petersburg, it could not only attack Richmond but also cut off needed goods to the rest of the rebel forces.

When the 18th Corps, which also included two white divisions, attacked Petersburg, it was the first time that such a large unit of colored troops were engaged in combat.

The 3rd Division had some success, capturing several pieces of Confederate artillery, but the corps was forced to pull back. It took up positions in trenches and laid siege to the city.

Despite the successes of the colored troops, some white officers still questioned their abilities. Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, commander of the Army of the James and Fort Monroe in Hampton, was not one of those officers.

Butler, a criminal lawyer born in New Hampshire, had long been called a "political general."

He had served two terms in the Massachusetts state legislature as a Democrat. When the Republican Abraham Lincoln ran for re-election in 1860, he asked Butler to be his running mate, thinking Butler would help secure the Democrats' vote. Butler turned him down, saying he would accept only if Lincoln promised to die after his inauguration.

It was Butler who, in 1861, declared runaway slaves to be "contraband of war," which meant that runaways would not be returned to their southern masters.

Butler encouraged the recruitment of black soldiers, wanting to command them, to use them in battle to prove their worth.

He would argue to his commander, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, that the "Negro troops" hadn't had a chance to prove their value in Virginia.

"I told him that I meant to take a large part of my Negro force, and under my personal command make an attack upon New Market Heights. I said I want to convince myself whether, when under my own eye, the Negro troops will fight," Butler later wrote.

Grant approved Butler's plan, which called for pulling the all-black 3rd Division away from Petersburg and moving it toward Richmond.

All communication about the plan was passed along by word of mouth. No one below the rank of corps commander was to know, Butler ordered.

But rumors, as they do, quickly began flying through the ranks.

"You somehow had the feeling," one of the U.S. Colored Troops later wrote, "that something was going on, or was going to happen, that would require one to be wise and cunning. The officers had a queer expression on their faces, and in fact, all the field officers seemed to be uneasy."

On Sept. 27, 1864, the black troops got their marching orders.

They were to carry only a blanket, three days' worth of food and 60 rounds of ammunition. They were to travel north on the James River on pontoon bridges.

They set up a temporary camp on the outskirts of Richmond, at a place called Chaffin's Farm.

The farm, a key component of New Market Heights located just south of the city, was home to the first of several lines of the city's fortifications.

At 3 a.m. on Sept. 29, the 3rd Division was ordered to move forward, closer to where the rebels were dug in.

There, they were told to "lie down and wait."

At 4:30 a.m. Maj. Gen. Butler arrived.

"I found the colored division ... occupying a plain which shelved towards the river, so that they were not observed by the enemy at New Market Heights. They were formed in close column of division right in front. I rode through the division, addressed a few words of encouragement and confidence to the troops. I told them that they must take it at all hazards."

Butler's final order: Advance shoulder to shoulder in close columns. Use bayonets only.

The morning was foggy.

The fog "enwrapped them," a witness later wrote, "like a mantle of death."

THE FIELD OF BATTLE

Edward Ratcliff and the other soldiers stood as the sun rose. They climbed to the top of a hill and looked down across the valley.

Below them was a plunging hill that led to a creek. The creek drained to a swamp. And where the land rose again stood an abatis - a barricade of trees that had been cut down and stuck into the side of the hill with their branches pointed outward.

One black soldier disobeyed the order. He loaded his weapon and opened fire.

Ratcliff and his men followed suit.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

With men dying in waves around him, Ratcliff pressed on.

He fought, and fought, and fought, until, less than an hour later, he was at the top of the other side of the valley.

He likely killed Confederate soldiers in his way and was one of the first enlisted men to break through the enemy's defenses, to stand inside their fortifications. The rebels soon retreated to the next line of defense protecting Richmond.

And Maj. Gen. Butler once again rode to the front to address the black soldiers.

He was proud of them. Other Union generals had failed in their attacks outside Richmond.

"As I rode across the brook and up towards the fort along this line of charge, some 80 feet wide and three or four hundred yards long, there lay in my path 543 dead and wounded of my colored comrades," Butler wrote.

"And as I guided my horse this way and that way, that his hoof might not profane their dead bodies, I swore to myself an oath, which I hope and believe I have kept sacredly, that they and their race should be cared for and protected by me to the extent of my power so long as I live."

HONORING VALOR

The Union Army didn't enter Richmond that day, but they had arrived at the door.

And Maj. Gen. Butler had accomplished what he had set out to do: His colored troops persevered and claimed victory in a place where others had failed.

Using his own money, Butler had small medals made for the black troops, calling them the Butler Medal.

Edward Ratcliff received his on Oct. 11.

Said Butler, "First Sgt. Edward Ratcliff, Company C, 38th U.S. Colored Troops, thrown into command of his company by the death of the officer commanding, was the first enlisted man in the enemy's works, leading his company with great gallantry - for which he has a medal."

By the end of March 1865, the Confederates were evacuating Richmond, leaving the city in flames.

The Union Army arrived and raised the Stars and Stripes on April 3.

Ratcliff's unit was among the first to occupy the fallen Confederate capital.

And on April 6, 1865, for the bravery with which he'd fought at Chaffin's Farm in the battle at New Market Heights, the former slave received a Medal of Honor.

Only 16 black men received the medal during the Civil War, 14 of them at the gates to Richmond.

Three days later, on April 9, 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.

The war was over.

Celebrations broke out in Washington, D.C. Thousands of Union soldiers flocked to the city, where, on Pennsylvania Avenue, they marched in the Grand Review of Troops.

Ratcliff, now promoted to sergeant major, didn't take part in the festivities. In the spring of 1865, the 38th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops was merged with other black regiments to form the 25th Corps.

Most of the men were taught to read and write then transferred to Texas.

While most of the white troops celebrated their victory in Washington and then returned to their families, the colored troops finished out their enlistment standing guard along the border with Mexico.

To produce this series of stories, Daily Press reporter Stephanie Heinatz interviewed members of the Radcliffe family and the Hankins family, the descendants of the owners of the land where Edward Ratcliff lived as a slave. She also reviewed dozens of documents, including family records and...

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